FROM DAY TO DAY "My God shall supply all your need" Though we may weep the dark night through, When darkness folds us, calm and deep, Or if we wake and night seems long, -Annie Johnson Flint, in S. S. Times. "Thou art the man" (2 Sam. 12: 17). David was a remarkable man, His brilliant success had been achieved, as we learn from the study of his life, partly by his native ability, charming personality, and resourcefulness; and partly by his genuine nobleness of character. But there was a darker, more base side to his nature. He was a man of most intense feeling, emotional, and like most men thus constituted, was liable to be swept away from the path of right, and to yield weakly to sin. He did yield on one fateful occasion and stained his hitherto brilliant record by two foul crimes, which he vainly endeavored to conceai by duplicity. Our first acquaintance with David begins when he was a young man, a shepherd boy, for it was his business to care for his father's sheep. The prophet of Jehovah was sent to the house of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, to anoint the Lord's chosen from among his sons to be king over Israel instead of Saul, who had been disobedient to God. When the prophet Samuel meets David we hear the testimony that the young shepherd boy was "ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to," and after the anointing, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him from that time forward. Under the influence of that Spirit we find him calm, serene and steadfast, derforming every duty as though led and directed by the Lord, as in leed he was. He was called to be the king's chief musician, to cheer him when angered or when fits of despondency came upon him. David performed his task in a simple, straightforward manner, skilfully playing until the king's anger had subsided, or until his insanity had given place to his normal condition. Then again we see him sent by his father to carry provisions to his brothers who are serving in Saul's army which is encamped in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. David approaches and sees the opposing armies drawn up in battle array. Then the great giant Goliath steps forward from the ranks of the Philistines and dares any Israelite to fight him singlehanded; defying, as David puts it, the armies of the living God. Then David is possessed with the desire to fight and overcome this uncircumcised Philistine. With that simple, unfaltering faith and trust in God whom he had so early learned to serve, he goes forth to battle with Israel's enemy, and in the strength and might of Jehovah he prevails against him, and slays the mighty Goliath. Because of that day's achievement Saul took David and would not permit him to go. any more to his father's house. And as Saul traveled from place to place throughout his kingdom after the slaughter of the Philistines, the women came out from the cities to meet him with musical instruments, singing and dancing, saying that Saul had slain his thousands but David his tens of thousands. Indeed there was such great praise heaped upon David that King Saul became jealous to the extent that he sought out how he might slay David. Any ordinary youth with such a brilliant career, with the praises and laudatory remarks of the multitudes ringing in his ears would have had his head turned. He would have begun to think that he was a very important personage. But not so with David. He very sensibly goes about his duties. Nothing boastful; no bragging about what he has accomplished. With such a brilliant record as David had had, and especially since he had been exalted to the position of king over Israel, it is difficult for us to believe that he would fall. And yet the fall came. David's fall is a striking example of the need of stress on the apostle Paul's admonition to the Corinthian brethren. “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Israel was at war with Ammon, The army under the generalship of Joab had been sent to besiege the capital city of the Ammonites which was situated some forty-five miles distant. David, however, remained in Jerusalem. If he had gone with the army as would have been perfectly natural for him to have done, he might have been spared the shame and disgrace of the one great sin and crime of his life. The old proverb that "An idle mind is the devil's workshop" was verified in this incident of David's life. In his idleness he conceived a guilty passion for Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers. To conceal his sin he summoned Uriah from the siege. But in spite of all his cunningly laid plans his victim failed to fall into the trap set for him. Not to be turned from his purpose he sent the woman's husband back to camp with a letter to Joab, feigning to do him honor, but in reality it was instructions to the commander to place him where he would be exposed to especial peril. His scheme this time worked. Uriah fell. Then David, commenting on the chances of war, made Bathsheba his wife, and she bore him a son. But the thing that was done was unlike the deeds of the shepherd boy, unlike the deeds of the man whom the Lord found, and of whom he said, "a man after mine own heart." The sin that David. committed displeased God. Nathan, the prophet of Jehovah, was sent to the guilty king to bring to him a message from the Most High. How cleverly Nathan delivers this message in the form of a parable! How unwittingly the king, no doubt having his conscience somewhat seared over, is led to pronounce doom against himself. It seems as if we can almost see the anger kindling in the heart of the king as he listens to this story of wicked selfishness that had been exercised in his kingdom. Hear his stern denunciation of the man who would dare do such a thing! "As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die! And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man." Then the prophet rendered to the king an enumeration of the ways in which Jehovah had blessed him. Let us see in what special manner David had received of the Lord. Thus said the Lord God of Israel, "I anointed thee king over Israel," "I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul," "I gave thee thy master's house," "I gave thee thy master's wives," "I gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah," "And if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things." Oh, why did David forget God? Why did he forget his integrity, his virtue. his love of justice and uprightness? How could he in the face of all that God had done for him, go so far astray as to contemplate and plan anything so evil against another? How about your case, my brother, my sister? David was led by the Lord, guided by him; he fell and we are inclined to criticize him sharply, to speak harshly concerning his sin. Yet you and I have the same leading that David had. We have Moses and the prophets, many of whom he did not have, because they lived at a later period of time. We have much more to keep us in the straight and narrow path than had he. In addition to Moses and the prophets and all the sources from which David could draw, we have Jesus Christ, his life, his example. We have the testimony of his chosen messengers who lived and worked as personal companions with him. We have the evidence and witness of the countless hordes that have believed in him during the past nineteen hundred years. And yet I doubt not that that stern and solemn declaration of Nathan, the prophet, is ringing in the ears of many a man and many a woman today, "Thou art the man," "Thou art the man." "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife." How this just condemnation must have come home to David with convincing and convicting power. I can imagine that I can almost see the palor of his countenance, the unsteadiness of his knees, the trembling of his hands, as the words are spoken, "Thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die." It was enough to cause a man to sit up and take notice, was it not? The sinner was brought face to face not only with his sin, but also with the nature of the punishment for that sin. He realizes perhaps for the first time that only a small part of the suffering and misery caused by sin and crime is visited upon the perpetrator of the deed. How can he bear it? That little bundle of humanity born into the world because of his sin, must suffer death to atone for it. Rather harsh judgment you say. It takes just such harsh judgment sometimes to bring to our senses such hardened old sinners as you and I are, or have been, and as David was. But wait! David was a religious man. He remembers, perhaps, of getting help from a certain source upon former occasions. How does David expect to obtain help for the child lying there in its little bed, stricken by the hand of the Almighty? Ah! David beseeches God for the child; he fasts, he lies all night upon the earth struggling with his sorrow and laying hold upon God. The elders of his house are grieved to see their king in such a plight. They arise. and go to him, but he will neither go with them nor eat bread with them. "And it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead.” The servants did not know their master. They did not know where he had been. They had not learned of that unseen power with which their lord and king was so well acquainted. They could not realize the change that had taken place in David, now that the object of his agony was quietly sleeping that everlasting sleep. That How about that great sorrow that you were called to bear. sorrow brought on by some secret sin, maybe, that you committed many years ago. Oh, you remember it all now as well as though it were yesterday. How did you come out of it? Before it came you just knew that you couldn't endure it. When it began you told |